MAGA Jesus Is Not the Real Jesus
Trump is causing incalculable damage to the Christian faith, yet most evangelicals will never break with him.
Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, has become an evangelist of a certain sort. During her tenure, her department has on multiple occasions released slick social-media recruitment videos in which scripture verses feature prominently.
One video quotes from Isaiah 6:8 (“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’”); another quotes from Proverbs 28:1 (“The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”). The most recent DHS video quotes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
What’s striking is less that the federal government is using Bible verses in its promotional videos than that the agency doing the recruiting is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The videos, set to music, include militaristic images. They show heavily armed agents in tactical gear, weapons drawn, donning masks, looking through night-vision goggles, zip-lining from helicopters, breaking down doors, and conducting nighttime raids.
